Many electronic products need various amounts of memory to store information, e.g. data. One common type of high speed, low cost memory includes dynamic random access memory (DRAM) comprised of individual DRAM cells arranged in arrays. DRAM cells include an access transistor, e.g. a metal oxide semiconducting field effect transistor (MOSFET), coupled to a capacitor cell.
Another type of high speed, low cost memory includes floating gate memory cells. A conventional horizontal floating gate transistor structure includes a source region and a drain region separated by a channel region in a horizontal substrate. A floating gate is separated by a thin tunnel gate oxide. The structure is programmed by storing a charge on the floating gate. A control gate is separated from the floating gate by an intergate dielectric. A charge stored on the floating gate effects the conductivity of the cell when a read voltage potential is applied to the control gate. The state of cell can thus be determined by sensing a change in the device conductivity between the programmed and un-programmed states.
With successive generations of DRAM chips, an emphasis continues to be placed on increasing array density and maximizing chip real estate while minimizing the cost of manufacture. It is further desirable to increase array density with little or no modification of the DRAM optimized process flow.
Multilayer insulators have been previously employed in memory devices. The devices in the above references employed oxide-tungsten oxide-oxide layers. Other previously described structures described have employed charge-trapping layers implanted into graded layer insulator structures.
More recently oxide-nitride-oxide structures have been described for high density nonvolatile memories. All of these are variations on the original MNOS memory structure described by Fairchild Semiconductor in 1969 which was conceptually generalized to include trapping insulators in general for constructing memory arrays.
Studies of charge trapping in MNOS structures have also been conducted by White and others.
Some commercial and military applications utilized non-volatile MNOS memories.
However, these structures did not gain widespread acceptance and use due to their variability in characteristics and unpredictable charge trapping phenomena. They all depended upon the trapping of charge at interface states between the oxide and other insulator layers or poorly characterized charge trapping centers in the insulator layers themselves. Since the layers were deposited by CVD, they are thick, have poorly controlled thickness and large surface state charge-trapping center densities between the layers.
Flash memories based on electron trapping are well known and commonly used electronic components. Recently NAND flash memory cells have become common in applications requiring high storage density while NOR flash memory cells are used in applications requiring high access and read speeds. NAND flash memories have a higher density because 16 or more devices are placed in series, this increases density at the expense of speed.
Thus, there is an ongoing need for improved DRAM technology compatible floating gate transistor cells. It is desirable that such floating gate transistor cells be fabricated on a DRAM chip with little or no modification of the DRAM process flow. It is further desirable that such floating gate transistor cells provide increased density and high access and read speeds.